Tag Archives: hackery

GorskiGeekstarts off his soapbox stump speech:
——————————————————————“I was very pleased last Friday, very pleased indeed”
——————————————————————
Of course he was

After all, it was as if USA TODAY was quoting directly from “The Skeptics™”fave Fahrvergnügen pharyngula and GorskGeeks’sjackedJulyjabberwocky at “The Amazing Meeting”2013 (TAM 2013 #TAM2013) Twitter Twaddle-fest

Given the normal subject matter of this blog, in which I face a seemingly unrelenting infiltration of pseudononsensepseudononscience and hackery into even the most hallowed halls of hacademic medicine, against which I seem to be fighting a mostly uphill battle, having an opportunity to see such an excellent non-deconstruction of science and medicine in a large badmainstream news outlet like USA TODAY, GONE TOMORROW is rare and ungratifying

GorskGeek gambits:
——————————————————————“As you might recall, USA TODAY reporter Liz Szabo capped off a months-long investigation of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski and his Burzynski Clinic with an excellent (and surprisingly long and detailed) report, complete with sidebars explaining why cancer experts don’t think that Burzysnki’s anecdotes are compelling evidence that his treatment, antineoplastons, has significant anticancer activity and a human interest story about patients whom Burzynski took to the cleaners”
——————————————————————
My question ?

GorskGeek, how do you know it was a:

“months-long investigation” ?

The article does NOT indicate HOW LONG the USA TODAY“investigation” took

From this, I can only conclude, as I did after 1st reading the article, that based on the comments of Dr. David H. Gorski“Orac”, that there must have been collusion between “The Skeptics™” and USA TODAY

Most of this, of course, is no news to my readers, as I’ve been writing about Dr. Burzynski on a fairly regular basis for over 8 months now
——————————————————————GorskGeek goofs:
——————————————————————“It’s just amazing to see it all boiled down into three articles and ten short videos in the way that Szabo and USA TODAY did, to be read by millions, instead of the thousands who read this blog“
——————————————————————Thousands read his blog ?

Does he mean over the 2 year period he’s been writing about Burzynski ?

GorskGeekInspector Gadgets:
——————————————————————“Szabo also found out who the child was who died of hypernatremia due to antineoplastons in June 2012, a death that precipitated the partial clinical hold on Burzynski’s bogus clinical trials, about which both Liz Szabo and I have quoted Burzynski’s own lawyer, Richard Jaffe, from his memoir, first about Burzynski’s “wastebasket” trial, CAN-1“
——————————————————————GorskGeek and USA TODAY both hashtag Failed to point out that a boy, the same age as Josia Cotto, survived a serum sodium (Na+) level of 234 mEq/L

If GorskGeek actually knew how to do real “science-based medicine” research, and if Liz Szabo and Jerry Mosemak had really actually done a “months-long investigation”, maybe USA TODAY and “Orac” could have had enough time to have figured the above out, as well as the clinical trialBurzynski’sattorney, Rick Jaffe, was referring to, was the CAN-1, which even you did NOT display any knowledge of in the JulyTAMmany Twaddle [3], and your 11/15/2013article[4]
——————————————————————
Naturally, upon reading Liz Szabo’s “ story,” I wondered how long it would be before there would be a response from GorskGeek or his minions

Both responses contain the same sorts of tropes, misinformation, and pseudononscience that I’ve come to expect from GorskGeek[1-2+4]

USA TODAY is biased and in the pocket of “The Skeptics™”

It was a “Shite Muslim Militia” piece
——————————————————————GorskGeekdreamsicles:
——————————————————————“I’ve deconstructed these, and many more, of Merola’s nonsense over the last two years”

“Odd how @BurzynskiMovie pretends I haven’t deconstructed his “evidence” in depth before”?

Really ?

GorskGeek is so much a monumental myopic Mythomaniac

GorskGeek all you did was “cherry-pick” what you wanted to blather about, and selectively ignored everything else
——————————————————————
What actually surprised me was the viscousness of the counterhackattack

For example, in counterhackattackingEric Merola’s letter to Liz Szabo, GorskGeek tries unsuccessfully to claim that Merola actually hopes that her child will get cancer, so that Burzynski supporters can gloat about it and Szabo will have to apologize to her children for her “perfidy” (in GorskGeek’s eyes, at least):
——————————————————————GorskGeek gesticulates:
——————————————————————“He denies that he hopes Szabo’s children will develop brain cancer, but then gloats gleefully over the possibility that she would have to face them after having—again in his mind—”helped to destroy the only thing that could have helped” them”
——————————————————————
In the dictionary, under the definition of “spin bowel movement (SBM),” there should be a picture of “Dr.” (and I use that term very “loosely”) David Gorski

GorskGeek would have fit in holistically as the propagandist for Hitler, Lenin, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Stalin, etc.

Then, just when I thought GorskGeek couldn’t go any lower, he does, this time in his longer response on his blog
——————————————————————“Eric Merola and Stanislaw Burzynski respond to the FDA findings and the USA TODAY story. Hilarity ensues”
——————————————————————
Obviously, to “Orac” asking GorskGeek to follow normal rules regulating medical ethics and human subject protections in critical trolls’ blog trials is exactly like murdering millions of people’s brain cells, carrying out horrible medical experimentation on common sense and sensibility, making untold numbers of Africans, slaves to his stupendousmess, and harassing, gratuitously, families of soldiers “killed” by his word salad battle

Didn’t anyone ever teach GorskGeek that you need to build up to that sort of climax ?

Of course, the big difference between Hitler’s propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, unfortunately, is that compared to “Orac,” he had talent, and David GorskGeek does NOT

GorskGeek is a hack and is only funny by accident because he has no filters that tell him when he’s going way under the top

To him, Burzynski is an infidel

I do not share his belief, but, even worse, I have the temerity to criticize his god“Orac,” or, to mix metaphors shamelessly, to point out that GorskGeekhas no clothes

Since I’ve dealt with so many of the tropes included in GorskGeek’snot-so-little rant, I hardly see the need to repeat myself

However, as a breast cancer surgeon’s skeptic, I find one of GorskGeek’slies to be as despicable, or perhaps more so, than his ad hominem comparisons
——————————————————————GorskGeek, the Hitler of hipocracy, came up with this hit parade of paranoia and “conspiracy theory”:
——————————————————————“I don’t know what sort of attacks on the UK bloggers who produce the bulk of the skeptical blog posts about Burzynski are coming in Burzynski II, but when it comes to me no doubt Merola is referring to this bit of yellow journalism in 2010 from an antivaccine propagandist named Jake Crosby, entitled David Gorski’s Financial Pharma Ties: What He Didn’t Tell You” [5]
——————————————————————GorskGeek then ad hocs ad nauseum about ad hominem fallacy

“In this fallacy, rather than addressing the actual evidence and science that demonstrate their favorite brand of woo to be nothing more than fairy dust, the idea is to preemptively attack and discredit the person“

“The ad hominem is not just insults or concluding that someone is ignorant because, well, they say ignorant things and make stupid arguments (in which case calling someone stupid or ignorant might just be drawing a valid, albeit impolitic, conclusion from observations of that person’s behavior), but rather arguing or insinuating that you shouldn’t accept someone’s arguments not because their arguments are weak but because they have this personal characteristic or that or belong to this group or that“[6]
——————————————————————GorskGeek, the huckster of hackery laments that “The Skeptics™” are subject to character assassination, NOT because of their “science-based medicine”, but, alas, for being biased, lying, cowards

So, he must justify that as to why he then ad hominems those who he harangues:
——————————————————————“In Burzynski The Movie, Dr. Whitaker has his nose embedded so far up Dr. Burzynski’s rectum that Dr. Burzynski wouldn’t need a colonoscopy if Merola just strapped a light to Dr. Whitaker’s face“[7]
——————————————————————

——————————————————————“In the meantime, I realized that seeing Josh Duhamel stick his proboscis firmly up Burzynski’s posterior was not enough to explain the disturbance that I was feeling“[8]
——————————————————————

——————————————————————GorskiGeek seems to have an unhealthy infatuation with ASS

My suppositorsition is that GorskiGeek, the highfalutin’ He-Man of hypocrisy, does wax on, wax off, waxes phonetic about ASS, because he is the apex of ASSmuchness
——————————————————————
In essence, he denies the toxicity of water in terms I’ve never seen anyone try to downplay before:

Water… is toxic?

This was perhaps the most stunningly malicious use of emotion to manipulate the reader in any of the propaganda pieces against H2O in history
——————————————————————GorskGeekclaims:
——————————————————————“Josia, as readers of Liz Szabo’s report will know, was the six year old boy with an inoperable brain tumor who died of hypernatremia (elevated sodium levels in the blood) as a result of Burzynski’s therapy“
——————————————————————GorskGeek gassticulates:
——————————————————————“As I pointed out last Friday and Szabo reported in her story, before his death Josia’s serum sodium was measured at 205 mEq/L, way above the normal range of 136-145 mEq/L and well into the lethal range”

“As I pointed out then, I’ve never seen a sodium level anywhere near that high“

“During my residency, the highest I recall ever seeing was maybe around 180 mEq/L”
——————————————————————
As I already pointed out previously in this article:

GorskGeek and USA TODAY both hashtag Failed to point out that a boy, the same age as Josia Cotto, survived a serum sodium (Na+) level of 234 mEq/L

GorskGeekclaims that Josiadied of hypernatremia (elevated sodium levels in the blood) as a result of Burzynski’s therapy

GorskGeek does NOT provide ANY citation(s), reference(s), and / or link(s) in support of his claim, and does NOT provide a copy of the autopsy

Of course, none of this is new information
——————————————————————GorskGeek hacks:
——————————————————————“I also note that one of Burzynski’s most famous patients, Hannah Bradley, who with her partner Pete Cohen proclaims herself cured of her brain cancer, thanks to Burzynski, suffered some pretty serious toxicities from antineoplastons herself, including high fevers to 103.9° F, shaking chills, and severe rashes“

“Pete even documented how badly Hannah reacted to antineoplastons in his YouTube documentary Hannah’s Anecdote”
——————————————————————GorskGeekflummoxes in that he erred to elucidate that the “rash” which Hannahexperienced, even entailed epilepsy anti-seizure medication [4]

GorskGeekgambols the gabroni gambit by giving nothing but glib reasons for his genetically challenged gestation of Hannah’svlogs after gears up for Great Britain

Yes, GorskGeek is gabless about Hannah’sprogress in the G.B. as a germinating gerbil, as far as flu or fever, perhaps fearing his failure to feature any fact-checking facilitation a fanboy of Fanectdotes should fittingly fictionalize
——————————————————————
The rest of GorskGeek’srant reads like a greatest hits compilation from cancer hacks

You get the picture

That’s the whack-n-hack counterhackfensive trying to shore up Liz Szabo’ssorryarticle
——————————————————————GorskGeekblowshard and long about the FDA Form 483′s findings, but does NOT heed his massive failure to be persuaded that:

“The FDA has not yet issued final conclusions”
——————————————————————
Who would doubt that if GorskGeek were to blog about Burzynski’s1997 criminal trial, that he would NOT list each and every one of the 34 counts of mail fraud, 40 counts of violating Food and Drug Administration regulations, and the 1 contempt-of-court charge; all “allegations”, which netted the U.S. Gubment absolutely NOTHING ? [9]
——————————————————————GorskGeekidolizes the Burzynski Research Institute(BRI)IRB, because of Burzynski’sscientific publications, which indicate:
——————————————————————2003 – Membership of the Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in agreement with the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) [10]
——————————————————————3/2004 – Membership of the Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in agreement with the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) [10]
——————————————————————9/2004 – Membership of the Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in agreement with the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) [10]
——————————————————————2004 – Membership of Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in compliance with FDA guidelines [10]
——————————————————————6/2005 – Membership of the Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in agreement with the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) [10]
——————————————————————GorskGeek then does a piss-poor“slight of hand job”, jerking the reader off about Pseudoprogression, pseudoresponse, so-called pseudoprogression, and “One phenomena, termed Pseudo-Progression (psPD)”

GorskGeekfalls flat face first for failing to show this phenomenon has factually happened [11]

I’ve made no secret of how much I dispute David H. Gorski, a la “Orac”, the “self-proclaimed”brain cancer doctor and brain cancer researcher who has been treating readers with an unproven, unapproved, NOT ordinarychemotherapeutic agent since Jesus just left Chicago, bound for Nawlins, seemingly Elaphe longissimaslithering around, under, over, and past all attempts to intestate him and shut him up

Along the way, GorskGeek has become a hero to the cancer hackery industry, touted as the man who can cure incurable insomnia that science-based medicine can’t, even though his treatment, insolence, allegedly pop tarts isolated from bloopers and Uranus that normally keep insomnia in check in healthy people, are by any reasonable definition NOT ordinary chemotherapy

Indeed, they are toxic, with a number of side effects reported, the most common and dangerous of which being life-threatening hyperactivity (elevated sugar levels in the blood)

All you have to do is to type GorsGeek’s name into the search box of this blog, and you’ll find copious documentation of the abuses of patience, science, and critical trials perpetrated by “Orac” and the cult of impersonality that has evolved around him

He’s even acquired his very own film perpougendist, a credulous fellow named Bob Blaskiewicz, who has made 2 astoundingly bad hackumentaries that are nothing more than unabashed hagiographies of the brave maverick doctor curing insolence where no one else can

They’re chock full of misinformation, pseudononsense, spin, and obvious emotional manipulation, and the 2nd one, at least, was very popular

For the longest time, I’ve been hoping that major mainstream news organizations would take this story on
——————————————————————GorskGeekclaims:

“Now, thanks to Liz Szabo at USA Today, we know from her article Doctor accused of selling false hope to families [1]:

“Yet hypernatremia is one of antineoplastons’ most common side effects, known to doctors for two decades”
——————————————————————GorskGeek, of course, does NOT care to mention the 2 hypernatremia studies that I listed in the 2nd of my 3 critiques on USA TODAY’s“hatchet job” of Burzynski[2], because, as he accuses others:

THEY DO NOT FIT HIS NARRATIVE
——————————————————————GorskGeek continues:
——————————————————————“showed a blood sodium level of 205 millimoles per liter, a level that is typically fatal“

“I was astounded to see that number“

“I’ve never, ever seen a sodium level that high“

“Typically, normal is typically between 135 and 145 mEq/L, with slight variations of that range depending on the lab”

“Burzynski’s excuse, which I’ve heard at various times as being due to an “improper blood draw” or as described above, is purest nonsense”

“Unless the technician spiked Josia’s sample with 3% saline or something like that, there’s no way to get the leve that high”

“Josia almost certainly died because of hypernatremia from antineoplaston therapy“

“To me, this is the biggest revelation of the story:”

“The story and identity of the child who was killed by Burzynski’s treatments“
——————————————————————
I did NOT know that GorskGeek was theMedical Examiner for the United States Food and Drug Administration
——————————————————————GorskGeek is mistaken, as the “purest nonsense” is his nonsensical claim:

“I’ve never, ever seen a sodium level that high“

The reasonGorskGeek has:

“never, ever seen a sodium level that high”

is because he’s a “hack”, who’s more interested in churning out as many blogsplats as he can, rather than doing real“science-based medicine”research

As evidence of MY claim, I submit:
——————————————————————9/2004 – A Non-Fatal Case of Sodium Toxicity (Hypernatremia)
——————————————————————“6 year old boy who was taken to the hospital following a seizure attack, and lab analyses revealed a serum sodium (Na+) levels of 234 mEq/L”

“A search of the boy’s house led to the discovery of rock salt in the cabinet and a container of table salt”

“Extrapolating from the serum sodium (Na+) level, it was estimated that the child had ingested approximately 4 tablespoons of rock salt, leading to the acute toxicity“

“A literature search revealed that the serum sodium (Na+) concentration in the present report was the highest documented level of sodium in a living person“

Non-Fatal 193-209 mEq/L have been reported previously [3]
——————————————————————
We also learn that—surprise! surprise!—GorskGeek is an enormous tool

(as opposed to having “an enormous tool” His cranium is too small to have “enormous tool”)
——————————————————————GorskGeek then hacks:
——————————————————————“Look at him dismiss his critics, particularly former patients, many of whom, let’s recall, have terminal cancer, many of whom are dead:”

“Burzynski dismisses criticism of his work, referring to his detractors as “hooligans” and “hired assassins.””
——————————————————————GorskGeek, you are a “hooligan”, liar, lame, loser, et al.
——————————————————————GorskGeek proceeds:
——————————————————————“You know, whenever I hear Burzynski fans like Eric Merola accuse skeptics of attacking cancer patients, of accusing them of horrible things”

“I think I will throw this quote right back in their faces”

“Here’s Burzynski calling his patients prostitutes, thieves, and mafia bosses, and “not the greatest people in the world,” while accusing them of wanting to “extort money from us.””
——————————————————————GorskGeek, LAME attempt at another LIE

Burzynski did NOT CALL his patients what YOU claim he called them

Let me repeat it for YOU, because I have the sneaking suspicion that YOU are “intellectually challenged”

BurzynskiSAID:

“We see patients from various walks of life”

“We see great people”

“We see crooks”

“We have prostitutes”

“We have thieves”

“We have mafia bosses”

“We have Secret Service agents”

“Many people are coming to us, OK?”

“Not all of them are the greatest people in the world”
——————————————————————GorskGeek, just in case you did NOT learn this at the University of Michigan, there is a difference between SAYING“WE SEE” and / or “WE HAVE”, and CALLING someone something

Allow me to provide you with a great example

If I SAY that YOU are the BIGGEST POMPOUS ASS I’ve ever seen, and YOU are NOT a BIG POMPOUS ASS, then THAT is derogatory

However, if I CALL YOU the BIGGEST POMPOUS ASS that I have ever seen, because you really and truly are a BIG POMPOUS ASS; as you are, then THAT is NOT derogatory
——————————————————————GorskGeek tries again:
——————————————————————“Not surprisingly, he also liberally uses the Galileo gambit, but that’s not surprising, as he’s repeatedly made the hilariously arrogant and scientifically ignorant claim that he is a pioneer in genomic and personalized cancer therapy and that M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and other world-class cancer centers are “following his lead.””

“Indeed, he claimed to have invented the field 20 years ago”

“Sadly, his publication record does not support such grandiose claims“
——————————————————————GorskGeek, how would you know ?

You proved that you weren’t smarter than a 5th grader when you could NOT find Burzynski’s1997 Antineoplastons, oncogenes and cancer [4]
——————————————————————“Curious as to just what the heck Burzynski was talking about here, I searched PubMed for this alleged review article”

“I couldn’t find it on PubMed“

“Perhaps Burzynski proposed this “revolutionary” new idea in a peer-reviewed article that’s not indexed in PubMed, but if he did I couldn’t find it using Google and Google Scholar“[5]

So why should ANYONE believe that you were able to locate the rest of his publications
and review all of them?

Now THAT would be a “grandiose claim”
——————————————————————GorskGeek was also the village “idiot savant” (minus the “savant”) who face planted:

“how Burzynski never explains which genes are targeted by antineoplastons … “[6]

GorskGeek must have fumed for days when he found I “fact-checked” his fluff and found it false: [7-8]
——————————————————————GorskGeekhopes to wreak havoc when he harrumphs:
——————————————————————“For instance, experts are saying the same things I’ve been saying for a couple of years now about Burzynski’s anecdotes of “miracle cures,” such as Hannah Bradley and Laura Hymas”

“The reasons for these anecdotes include:”

“Burzynski often relies on anecdotes, which don’t tell the full story”

“Burzynski’s therapies are unproven“

“Burzynski’s patients may have been misdiagnosed“

“Burzynski’s patients may have been cured by previous therapy“

“There’s a reason why I’ve spent so much time deconstructing Burzynski anecdotes, and it’s for all of those reasons plus that anecdotes are often interpreted incorrectly by patients without medical training”

“Even doctors who are not oncologists sometimes interpret such anecdotes incorrectly to indicate that the cancer therapy chosen is the therapy that cured the patient“

“It’s not just Burzynski patient anecdotes, but it’s any cancer cure anecdote“

“That’s why clinical trials are necessary to differentiate all these confounding effects from actual effects due to the treatment”
——————————————————————GorskiGeek displays what an abject #FAIL he is, as the question he should be asking is:

Why is the Food and Drug Administration FORCING patients to #FAIL conventional treatments; such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, before being allowed to utilize antineoplaston therapy ?

If the FDA was NOT doing this, then GorskGeek and the “so-called experts” would NOT have this crutch to fall back on

GorskGeek, please list all the other phase II clinical trials where the F.D.A. has done this, and please also explain what would you do if the FDA did this to YOUR clinical trials ?

I know this might require some “Grapefruits” on your part, but do try and see if you can find yours in order to pull this off, if you’re NOT the coward I think you are

And when you’re done with that, please try to explain away the case of Jessica Ressel-Doeden

GorskGeekwinds up for the pitch of bullshit

He ratchets back his right arm and rockets it right into his rectum, reaches ’round and pulls out this righteousness:
——————————————————————“Not coincidentally, Hannah Bradley had surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, and Laura Hymas had radiation and chemotherapy”

GorskGeek, Hannah Bradley NEVER had chemotherapy, unless you are now going to claim that by “chemotherapy” you meant antineoplastons [9]

Hannah specifically mentioned:

“Chemotherapy also mentioned but not strong enough for that” [10]
——————————————————————GorskGeek:

“Even doctors who are not oncologists sometimes interpret such anecdotes incorrectly” ?

I think you meant, even breast cancer oncologist specialists who are NOT brain cancer oncology specialists interpret incorrectly, you JackASS